Toby Harnden was the Daily Telegraph's US Editor, based in Washington DC, from 2006 to 2011. Click here for Toby's website. Follow him on Twitter here @tobyharnden and on Facebook here. He is the author of the bestselling book Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Defining Story Britain's War in Afghanistan.

Mitt Romney to do a JFK?

Mitt Romney is to give "the speech" about his Mormon faith on Thursday at College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M University and the George Bush Snr Presidential Library. He'll be introduced by President George Bush Snr himself a pretty useful imprimatur, though it'll stop short of a full endorsement.

Not everyone will give Romney's faith the thumbs up

The Romney campaign has been talking publicly about this for well over a year and there's a danger of fatigue before it's even happened. Clearly, it's an attempt by Romney to change the dynamic at a time when Mike Huckabee seems to have overtaken him in Iowa. Politico has the full background here.

I'd say that the overt comparison to John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech about Roman Catholicism is very risky. Remember Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas telling Dan Quayle in that vice-presidential debate in 1988: "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."